Trying to get my Characters to Talk.

I’ve been writing these books for a few years, when it dawned on me- about an hour ago- that I have a major issue with one of my main characters.

He isn’t a main character in the first two books, but then the secret about him is spilled and he becomes one of the major characters for the following books. So, because of this, I was having him being in the background – getting another character to do his dirty work. My MC knows him, and so if he showed up it would be a dead giveaway. But, now that he’s so buried and hidden throughout book one and two; when he does show, the readers are going to be like who the fuck is this dude?

I need to get him more involved in book one, so that when he does show up that he already has all this life and story that the characters and the readers thought was real.

That’s my dilemma now, and I’ve spent the last hour doing anything other than editing or writing trying to make sense of him as a person. And it’s like trying to get blood from a stone. My brain is melting.

As the writer, I know who he is, what pushes him, his backstory etc. I just don’t know what my characters think and because of this I need to make up another other life and backstory for him.